The Man O' War and Fleet Servers + Gameplay Improvement Ideas

  • Ahoy! I’d like to suggest a feature that would build on Sea of Thieves' strengths — ship-to-ship cooperation, PvP tension, and memorable multiplayer moments — while opening the door to deeper strategic gameplay for veteran crews.

    The Core Idea

    Introduce a new player-captained ship type: the Man O’ War, designed for 5–6 player crews, with a focus on coordination, risk, and firepower. To complement it, add Fleet Servers — an optional game mode where players are automatically grouped into factional fleets, each with shared objectives and regional goals.

    1. The Man O’ War – Stats & Identity

    Crew Size: 5–6 players

    Cannons: 12 total (6 per side) +2 puckle guns (I hope)

    Speed: Slowest ship in the game

    Turning: Very wide, poor maneuverability

    Visibility: Flagged on the map for all players during active PvP conflicts

    Purpose: A mobile fortress that rewards teamwork but is vulnerable without it

    This isn’t meant to dominate the seas, but to offer a high-risk, high-reward option for crews seeking deeper tactical play. It could also be expensive to launch, encouraging meaningful use rather than casual sailing.

    1. Fleet Servers – Optional Structured Play

    Fleet Servers could be a separate game mode (or toggle), where:

    Players are auto-assigned into teams/factions upon entry (3–4 per server)

    Each fleet has:

    A home outpost or stronghold

    Shared map markers, basic comms (like fleet chat), and teamwide objectives (such as a secondary always-active fleet voyage with fleet-wide comtribution)

    Fleets compete via:

    Deliveries, raids, territory control, or defending allies

    Taking over outposts would create a visible territory line on the map, symbolizing a faction's progress taking over the Sea of Thieves.

    Fleet-wide scoreboard tallies efforts, rewards gold, cosmetics, or faction commendations

    This allows players to work with others from the start, engage in larger-scale battles, and create a “naval warfare” experience that still feels organic and pirate-y.

    1. Other Ideas

    The musket, a much needed middle-ground between the pistol and eye of reach.

    Support items that take a weapon slot such as a deployable ammo box with a few reloads.

    The ability to carry two of the same gun, making it give you double the ammo instead of switching between them. Also dual wielding cutlasses and pistols.

    A throwable that heals you and anyone around you when you throw it.

    Puckle guns on the helm (kind of like the little cannons on the back of Flameheart's ship) and they use scattershot as ammo except they get 4 shots per scattershot and they fire them individually at high velocity, but with a fast fire rate.

    1. Why This Fits Sea of Thieves

    Responds to long-standing community desire for larger crews

    Encourages cooperation beyond ship alliances

    Adds depth without overwhelming solo/duo players — it’s opt-in

    Offers a new PvP/PvE meta built around roles, convoy runs, and support play

    Lends itself to event potential and seasonal faction content

    It could work into the current story arc rather well, perhaps incorporating another party into the war for the Sea of Thieves, I'd love to see this update as "Sea of War" or something cool like that.

    This is an idea meant to expand the sandbox, not replace it — giving more options to those who want epic teamwork while respecting the game’s balance and accessibility.

    Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear thoughts from the community or the devs!

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  • Introduce a new player-captained ship type: the Man O’ War, designed for 5–6 player crews

    You mean the Burning Blade?

  • Well, no. An additional ship type that you can set sail in. Different specs than the Burning Blade, and it'd be a nice followup to it's existence in the game.

  • A 5-6 crew ship would break the balance for the game. A solo/duo sloop could never deal enough damage to sink it, and without help, it would be pointless for them.

  • @europa4033 that's why I want to introduce faction servers. Imagine larger scale naval combat! It'd be awesome! A man o war would basically just be the flagship of the faction, a powerhouse with rewards for anyone who sinks it. But still, you'd be able to charter or captain one but only in faction servers. Also safer seas (for practice ig) also it'd take forever to bail/repair a ship of that scale.

  • I'm sure we can all agree on section 3 though. Please tell me that at least.

  • Crew Size: 5–6 players

    Breaks game balance. A 5-6 crew would be nearly unsinkable.

    Fleet Servers – Optional Structured Play
    Fleet Servers could be a separate game mode (or toggle)

    So arena. You want arena with more work. With separate modes that need separate updating. Arena failed for those reasons.

    Support items that take a weapon slot such as a deployable ammo box with a few reloads.

    Why? This is not CoD.

    A throwable that heals you and anyone around you when you throw it.

    Nah. This just allows more camping on someone's ship by allowing MORE & easier healing. A healing bomb.

    Responds to long-standing community desire for larger crews

    They can desire it, but that does not make them correct or fit the game balance.

    Offers a new PvP/PvE meta built around roles, convoy runs, and support play

    Except there are no roles in the game. You do what needs doing. No one is a designated healer with a healing mist, or a DPS with two swords or double the ammo.

  • @jacob-number-1 said in The Man O' War and Fleet Servers + Gameplay Improvement Ideas:

    @europa4033 that's why I want to introduce faction servers. Imagine larger scale naval combat! It'd be awesome! A man o war would basically just be the flagship of the faction, a powerhouse with rewards for anyone who sinks it. But still, you'd be able to charter or captain one but only in faction servers. Also safer seas (for practice ig) also it'd take forever to bail/repair a ship of that scale.

    Not sure if you were here when the Adventures were happening, but it took 2 seperate crews to summon/defeat the shrouded ghost, and even then, during or after the big fight, crews were turning on each other. Players flocked here to the forums expressing their rage about being double-crossed like that, and blamed Rare for their lack of predicting this would happen for this event. All I'm hearing is you wanting to replace the shark, with a 5-6 crewed ship that everyone on the server is supposed to go after and sink for some apparant reason.

    No idea why "it'd take forever to repair/bail", when a solo/duo sloop is looking down the barrels at 5-6 cannons shooting at them, and the few holes the sloop would inflict on them (if at all), takes mere seconds to repair/bail water (very easy with 5-6 crewmembers).

    If you make the 5-6 crewed ship so impossibly large and cumbersome to sail, you're going to lose player interest in crewing it. If you make the ship so large a solo/duo sloop can't inflict enough damage to sink it, you lose player interest in partaking in the event. It's almost as if ships and crew-sizes being balanced in this game is important or something....

    Nothing about section 3 is needed in this game. A gun that gets the best of both worlds from the eye of reach/pistol, a throwable heal that heals anyone around you (so the guy I'm trying to kill gets healed? 6 people on a sloop spawncamping them would get healed non-stop). Puckle guns on the helm, that fires at a fast rate, because that solo/duo sloop getting shot at by 6 players now has that to contend with?

    This doesn't fit Sea of Thieves in the slightest.

  • @guildar9194 well, just keep in mind that they're only suggestions. I'm just throwing ideas out there, and hey, maybe some of them are good and I do totally agree with you that this is not CoD and yeah healing mist is kinda an oversight thing with me but I still think that arena+story+group progression could be really good, the man o war wouldn't be for normal sandbox. 1 per faction per server we'll say. But I do think the musket is a perfect idea and I personally would rather use simply one gun instead of having to use two different ones, and dual swords could offset the drawback of 0 range.

  • @europa4033 I may not have mentioned it but I would only want the man o war on the faction game mode. No single sloop v 6 man team on a war machine. It would be man o war v man o war with conflict going on between, no infighting in a faction, yes the heal bomb sucks I didn't think about it, and thanks for replying : )

  • Alright, here's a revision based on feedback:

    . The Man O’ War – Stats & Identity

    Crew Size: 5–6 players

    Cannons: 12 total (6 per side) +2 puckle guns (I hope)

    Speed: Slowest ship in the game

    Turning: Very wide, poor maneuverability

    Visibility: Flagged on the map for all players during active PvP conflicts

    Purpose: A mobile fortress that rewards teamwork but is vulnerable without it

    Only available in Fleet Servers

    This isn’t meant to dominate the seas, but to offer a high-risk, high-reward option for crews seeking deeper tactical play. It could also be expensive to launch, encouraging meaningful use rather than casual sailing.

    1. Fleet Servers – Optional Structured Play

    Fleet Servers could be a separate game mode (or toggle), where:

    Players are auto-assigned into teams/factions upon entry (3–4 per server)

    Each fleet has:

    Only 1 man o war

    A home outpost or stronghold

    Shared map markers, basic comms (like fleet chat), and teamwide objectives (such as a secondary always-active fleet voyage with fleet-wide comtribution) think group pve.

    No infighting pvp

    Fleets compete via:

    Deliveries, raids, territory control, or defending allies

    Taking over outposts would create a visible territory line on the map, symbolizing a faction's progress taking over the Sea of Thieves.

    Fleet-wide scoreboard tallies efforts, rewards gold, cosmetics, or faction commendations

    This allows players to work with others from the start, engage in larger-scale battles, and create a “naval warfare” experience that still feels organic and pirate-y.

    1. Other Ideas

    The musket, a much needed middle-ground between the pistol and eye of reach.

    The ability to carry two of the same gun, making it give you double the ammo instead of switching between them.

    Puckle guns on the helm (kind of like the little cannons on the back of Flameheart's ship) and they use scattershot as ammo except they get 4 shots per scattershot and they fire them individually at high velocity, but with a fast fire rate.

    1. Why This Fits Sea of Thieves

    Responds to long-standing community desire for larger crews without making the game unfair

    Encourages cooperation beyond ship alliances in a specific game mode

    Adds depth without overwhelming solo/duo players — it’s opt-in

    Sound good anybody???

  • @jacob-number-1 said in The Man O' War and Fleet Servers + Gameplay Improvement Ideas:

    1. Other Ideas

    Support items that take a weapon slot such as a deployable ammo box with a few reloads.

    The ability to carry two of the same gun, making it give you double the ammo instead of switching between them. Also dual wielding cutlasses and pistols.

    Yikes, no. Game is bad enough with two firing weapons being equipable as it is. Mainly because of macros.

    I would say no to extra bullet storage, bullets are a plenty on your ship, ammo crates and islands as it is.

  • @captdirtyoar yeah, I didn't like the ammo box thing very much after thinking about it, but what I'm saying g is I'd rather have the same amount of ammo in 1 gun than in 2 guns because I prefer, say, the blunderbuss or eye if recharge for a specific scenario.

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